Page 1090 - Week 03 - Thursday, 18 March 2010
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However, it is important to note that today’s amendments will facilitate judicial exchange but they will not guarantee it. The legislation makes clear that the responsibility for putting in place a judicial exchange arrangement rests with the Attorney-General and his interstate counterparts. The likelihood of judicial exchange occurring will be put at risk if the two jurisdictions cannot agree. Because of this, the Greens encourage the Attorney-General to not delay, to immediately start the necessary negotiations with his counterparts, if he has not done so already.
As I have flagged, the Greens will be supporting the bulk of the bill in principle, but I will be moving my amendment later in the debate.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella) (10.56): This bill contains a number of provisions amending the jurisdiction of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, ACAT, with respect to planning reviews. The proposed amendments remove internal appeals from an initial decision of the ACAT in relation to administrative reviews under the Planning and Development Act 2007, the Heritage Act 2004 and the Tree Protection Act 2005. Appeals to the Supreme Court will be confined to questions of law. This restores the process that formerly applied to decisions under these acts when reviewed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the AAT.
It was not the government’s intention that the change from AAT to ACAT should have affected the previously clearly defined arrangements for the timely handling of appropriate review rights on planning matters. The provisions removing internal appeals, correction requests and internal rulings on questions of law are accompanied by provisions to clarify the requirements for standing to join applications, and introducing powers for the ACAT to award costs against vexatious litigants. The effect of these changes is to ensure certainty in relation to the process of planning appeals, consistent with section 22P of the ACAT Act, which provides that the ACAT must decide applications under these acts within 120 days after the day the application is made.
Standing to join an application for review and the number of reviews available can be a matter for statute and need not only be regulated by the common law. It is open to government to restrain these rights according to the subject matter and the outcomes sought. In relation to planning appeals, it is the government’s policy that, after a merits review in the ACAT, further appeal rights should be restricted to questions of law, to be decided by the Supreme Court. The new regime for planning appeals follows that standard. The proposed system strikes an appropriate balance between appeal rights and certainty for developers.
The reforms to the planning appeals process are supplemented by the introduction of a provision to allow the ACAT to award reasonable costs in the event that an application or applicant is deemed to be frivolous or vexatious under section 32 of the act. Reasonable costs are defined to exclude holding costs such as interest and lender-imposed charges associated with a loan and costs of engaging workers and subcontractors and hiring equipment for a development.
The bill contains a provision to remove any doubt as to the scope of the tribunal to make rules with respect to time frames set under authorising legislation. The provision
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